In the ongoing trend to further reduce the size of electronic components such as integrated circuits, advancement of the state of the art depends largely on solutions to interconnect components in high density. One solution is through the use of surface-mount components: packages with lead pitch of 0.025" (0.635 mm.) are becoming more common. In conventional practice it is common to form pads on a printed circuit board; however, where hookup wires need to be connected to the pads, difficulty in handling the wire and making the connections, typically by means of wire wrapping around a post and/or soldering, tends to create a troublesome and inefficient production "bottleneck".
U.S. Pat. No. 5,042,146, by the present inventor, discloses a process and apparatus for forming double-helix contact receptacles directly from hookup wire for interconnecting components independent of printed circuitry. The present invention is regarded as an extension of the teachings of Pat. No. 5,042,146 to include the forming of contact pads directly from hookup wire. Some of the apparatus of that patent, such as the vertical mandrel press, work table, and the wire processing mechanization including stripping, cutting, handling and supply are readily adaptable to the present invention which, like the inventor's earlier patent, addresses handling both single and twisted pair insulated hookup wire, and deals with the same sized wire: typically 30 gauge (AWG) having a diameter of 0.0125" which fits nicely into an array of connections requiring surfacemount pads with 0.025" pitch.